


Shivers

by Paganpunk2



Category: Father Brown (2013)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, Birthday Sex, Homoeroticism, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rain, Sneaky Sid, Surprises, Theft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:55:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27730375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paganpunk2/pseuds/Paganpunk2
Summary: A morning robbery is followed by Sid's sudden appearance in Sullivan's bedroom.  This is not the birthday that the Inspector was expecting to have...
Relationships: Sid Carter/Inspector Sullivan
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

“...Boo.”

Sullivan about jumped out of his skin even though the word had been said in a soft, amused voice. “Sid?” He frowned at the familiar silhouette in his bedroom doorway. “We didn’t have plans for tonight.” Had they? He was going to feel like a cad if he’d forgotten. Their trysts were so few and far between that each one usually stood out as bright as Christmas on his mental calendar. He couldn’t have misremembered, surely. “What are you doing here?”

“At the moment, admiring the view. Can’t say what exactly I’ll be doing in five minutes.” Sid was nothing more than a slightly blacker outline against the darkness of the hallway behind him, but Sullivan knew there was a lascivious smirk spreading across his face. “Got a pretty good idea of who I’ll be doing it to, though.”

In the general course of things, Sullivan hated surprises. Surprises complicated his schedule. It was impossible to plan for everything, especially when it came to police business, but he liked his days to have a certain amount of predictable structure and routine to them. Part of his routine on nights when he didn’t have an emergency to attend to or a soiree to represent the force at or a certain troublemaking brat to pin to the mattress (or the floor, or the wall, or the...wherever, really) was to relax in bed with a case file and a glass of whiskey. This was exactly what Sid had caught him doing, and it was only now that Sullivan realized they’d never talked about what they each did to wind themselves down when they couldn’t wind each other up instead.

He looked at the file he had open on the quilt. Someone had robbed Mrs. Everard’s tea shop of a week’s takings and five pounds of a new and expensive rare blend this morning. Whoever it was had a hell of a quiet way about them; the proprietress had been in the next room, with the communicating door open, but hadn’t heard a thing. Sullivan had been rather looking forward to trying the now-missing blend for himself on his next day off, and he was determined to get to the bottom of its disappearance. 

But not tonight. After all, he was already stripped down to boxer shorts. It seemed a shame to waste such a golden opportunity as this one, even if it had come as a surprise. 

Evidently, though, it had taken him too long to say as much. “...Look, Tommy, I’ll go if you want.” For once in his life Sid actually sounded apologetic. Sullivan wasn’t sure if it was that or the way his childish nickname resonated in Sid’s voice that made a shiver run down his spine. “No hard feelings. We didn’t have plans, like you said, and I know you don’t like surprises. I mean, most people make an exception for a birthday, but...”

“What do you mean, ‘for a birthday’?” Sullivan glanced at the incident date listed inside the front cover of his file. Then he closed his eyes and let out a long groan. “Oh, no.” 

“...You didn’t really forget what today is, did you?”

“I can’t believe this.”

Sid was sniggering. “How? How do you even do that?”

“Are you trying to tell me that you’ve _never_ lost track of the date?”

“Not when the date in question is my own bleedin’ birthday, no.” The silhouette leaned against the doorframe and trembled with mirth. “Amazed you remember anything useful at all, at that rate. D’you even know who I am?” 

Sullivan could feel the fierce blush that had risen into his cheeks. Sitting up straight, he crossed his arms. “Are these insults your idea of a present, Carter?”

“No, I brought you a real one of those.” He was still chuckling, but there was an edge to his tone. “If we’re regressing to last names, though, maybe I’ll take it back outside where things are a bit warmer. Which is saying something, by the way, _Inspector_.”

It _had_ been chilly that afternoon. And since they’d agreed long ago that it was too risky for their cars to be parked near each other’s domiciles in the dead of night, Sid would have walked from either his caravan or the Montague estate to get here. Despite that, he’d offered to turn around and walk right back again – after a consolatory pint at The Red Lion, no doubt, but still – if his unexpected appearance was impinging on Sullivan’s plans. His shoulders slumped as his irritation drained away. “...I’m not actually mad at you, Sid. It’s just habit.” 

“...Yeah. I know.” 

Of course he knew. They shared so many habits, Sullivan and Sid: throwing barbs when they wanted to throw kisses, widening their distance when they would have rather closed ranks, pretending to hate each other when actually...

Sullivan sighed. Bad habits. Necessary habits, yes, absolutely crucial for their public survival, but bad. And they'd never develop better ones in private if they didn’t seize every precious chance they got to practice them. 

He swept the Everard file together and tossed it onto the nightstand. Then he turned back to the doorway and beckoned the shadow forward. “Come here.”

“Oh, so you do want your birthday present, after all?”

“If it happens to be you...yes.”

“Right, I’ll chuck the other bit, then.”

“Don’t make me come over there.” 

“V’you ever had a present walk up to you and ask to be unwrapped before? That’s not how it works. Making it through another year might be noteworthy and all, but you can’t expect to have your recognition brought to you on a silver platter.”

Sid on a silver platter. Sullivan hadn’t known he needed that image in his life. He also hadn’t known that he was going to get up until he was already on his feet and halfway to the door. “Making it through a single _month_ of your antics should earn me some sort of special treatment, let alone an entire-”

He stopped short, his fingers mere inches from Sid’s hips. Sid’s...bare...hips. Of the two of them, Sullivan discovered with a glance, he himself was the more clothed. “You cheeky little bastard,” he breathed. 

Teeth flashed as a triumphant grin unfurled. “Reach around a little further,” Sid challenged, leaning in, “and find out just how cheeky I am.”

Sid might have had a height advantage, but Sullivan could boast of more muscle. With hormones in play, it felt like nothing to grab the younger man by the arse and carry him back towards the bed. Sid melted, enveloping him in arms and legs and greedy, sucking kisses. “No marks,” Sullivan growled as the pulse point beneath his jaw came under attack. “At least,” he conceded pantingly when he felt a pout start to form against his throat, “not there.”

“Find someplace better later, then.”

And then they were tumbling down to where photos of an empty space among Mrs. Everard’s tea tins – how incredibly boring, Sullivan thought wildly, compared to this – had lain a mere quarter hour before. He’d had an idea, a theory, beginning to coalesce just before he’d been interrupted, but as he ground Sid into the popping springs he realized that it was complete rubbish. It was amazing, the clarity that came to him in these moments. If he could do this every day, he’d be a Chief Inspector in six months. 

...Or not, since it had taken him all this time to realize that Sid’s hair was soaking wet. Sullivan had been about to drag his fingernails along his partner’s scalp, but the unexpected moisture made him freeze. “What...?” 

Sid went instantly still. His eyes had been half-closed and sparkling with pleasure; now they were wide kaleidoscopes, caution and cunning and fear mingling in the irises as he strained his ears. “You hear something downstairs?” he mouthed after a moment. 

“What? Oh. No.” Sullivan shook his head. “...No. I’m sorry.” His reaction had been rather abrupt; it was no wonder Sid had assumed the worst. “But-”

Sid went limp beneath him. “’Bout gave me a heart attack,” he complained. “All my clothes are down there. I mean, I re-locked the door behind me, but still. It would be pretty obvious what was going on, if anyone got inside.”

The door. Sullivan had locked the cottage up tight, as he did every night when he wasn’t expecting a nocturnal visitor. Sid didn’t have a key. Sullivan would gladly have let him cut one, and it would have been easy enough to explain if he was caught with it – wouldn't anyone who was constantly under the eye of the local constabulary want the ability to nip in and make a bit of incriminating evidence disappear in the dead of night? – but the very existence of an explanation was a problem of its own. Every extra tale they had to tell to protect themselves was another clue which, from the right point of view, might add up to evidence. The fewer there were to sum up, the better. 

“How did you get in here?” Sullivan asked on the tail of this thought. “No, never mind,” he added swiftly. “...Never mind.” He knew that the words ‘trade secrets’ had been about to come out of that sassy, snarky, and entirely delectable mouth. And he didn’t want to know the answer, anyway. If they had the improbable good fortune to grow old enough together that they no longer wanted to play cops and robbers, then yes, because he was sure the stories were amazing. For now, though, there was a more important question on his mind. “Why is your hair wet?”

Sid blinked at him as if he were denser than a concrete wall. “Account of the rain, innit?”

As soon as Sid said that, Sullivan heard it. It must have started while he was in the shower earlier. His brain had simply absorbed it as continuing background water noise after he’d turned off the tap, leaving his conscious self unaware. “You walked here in a cold rain,” he said, all disbelief, “then stood stark naked in a drafty hallway with wet hair and waited for me to notice you?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Are you _trying_ to give yourself pneumonia?!”

Sid wriggled suggestively beneath him. “What, you don’t want to play nurse?”

“Not for real, no!” Never mind the fact that he wouldn’t be allowed to. The way they acted in the streets meant that it would look odd for Sullivan to even off-handedly enquire after Sid’s health unless it became general knowledge that he was at death’s door. Hovering over his sickbed with a cool washcloth in one hand was miles outside of the realm of possibilities. 

“Hey...” Fingers – clever, sneaky fingers, fingers that could unlock and claim just about anything their owner wanted, including Sullivan himself – traced up his spine. “Tommy. How come I’m the one who’s wet, but you’re the one who’s shivering?”

All the teasing was gone, replaced by curiosity and a healthy dose of confused concern. Sullivan let out a long breath, then dropped his forehead gently against Sid’s. “Umbrellas are a thing that exist, Sidney. Use one from now on.” 

“You ever tried to be stealthy with an umbrella? It’s impossible.”

“Father Brown seems to manage.”

“Yeah, well, he’s got help, hasn’t he?”

“...God?”

“Nah. Me.”

Sullivan couldn’t hold in a short bark of laughter. When it had passed, he silenced the still-rumbling laugh beneath him with a soft kiss. “Get in the shower,” he ordered, pushing himself up and away.

Sid sat up in his wake. “Ooh.” The sparkle was back in his eyes. “We’ve never done it in there before.”

“That’s not why-” Sullivan was shut up by a pair of lips. A bit of tongue, too, which he desperately wanted to follow right back down onto the dampened quilt. No, no, resist the urge, focus on the long-term goal, not the immediate enjoyment...

“I know that,” said Sid, pulling away. “But it _is_ your birthday. And you still haven’t gotten your present. So c’mon.” He grabbed Sullivan’s hand and pulled him off the bed. “I’m feeling a bit dirty, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t want to clean me up.” That insufferable, irreplaceable grin. “Least a little bit, right?”

“...You have no idea, Sid. No idea at all.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Rain’s stopped,” Sid murmured.

They were in the bed this time instead of just on top of it. They hadn’t slept after their shower, both loath to waste the dwindling hours they had left together and aware of the disaster a missed alarm would be. Talk had been sporadic, but meaningful. Once they’d relaxed enough to turn off their mutual sniping and screwed enough to soften the edges of their more animalistic desires, they needed few words to be comfortable. 

It was nice, this warm closeness. Sullivan wondered if its rarity made it feel more valuable to him, or if he would cherish it just as much if he could have it every night. He suspected the latter, though he knew he’d never get to find out for sure. “...Why _didn’t_ we have plans for tonight, Sid?” 

“Full moon.”

“Oh.” Sid was the one who kept track of such things, not Sullivan. Sid was the one who knew the routines of Kembleford’s other denizens of the night, the one who caught wind when something unusual was scheduled for the witching hour, the one who watched the skies from his dark, clear meadow. They were far less likely to be seen by the wrong eyes when he did the scheduling. 

Sullivan was aware that this should have annoyed him. What kind of a policeman knew his jurisdiction of two full years less intimately than the local petty criminal? Really, though, it was a relief to have one less thing to worry about. He’d never have been able to forgive himself if a meeting he’d arranged was the one that got them caught. “Will you be able to get back, if the rain’s stopped?” 

“Course. Clouds are probably still there. And even if they’re not...” Sid shrugged, his shoulder lifting Sullivan’s head with it. “Plenty of other things I might have been out doing.”

“Such as?”

“Mm. I dunno.” Sid’s thumb slipped behind Sullivan’s exposed ear and fondled the sensitive skin there. “Couple of little things went on tonight. You could try to pin one of ‘em on me if someone saw me taking a late-night stroll. Good distraction charges, but they’d be easy enough to wiggle out of. No harm done.”

No harm done seemed to be the theme of the evening. For all that Sullivan hated surprises, Sid’s unexpected arrival had turned out to be a nice one. He seemed to be no worse for wear after his drenching walk, either. He _had_ finally started to shiver once they were in the shower, but that had been Sullivan’s doing, not the cold rain’s. Remembering this, Sullivan ran a hand slowly up the inside of Sid’s thigh. Where had that spot been, the one that had nearly made the younger man drop to his knees on the unforgiving porcelain when he’d stroked it with just the right amount of pressure...?

A sharp intake of breath told him when he’d found it. Sullivan moved forward until his lips just brushed Sid’s throat. “Or I could arrest you right now,” he threatened silkily. “I do prefer to do my interrogating privately, when I can, and this situation would be very convenient.”

Muscle and tendon flexed under Sullivan’s fingers as Sid spread his legs wider. “Oh, yeah?” came a panting challenge. “What makes you so sure a ‘private interrogation’ would get me to squeal?”

“The fact that it worked earlier.” Up, up just a little more, half an inch, a quarter, probing, searching. 

“No guarantee...it’ll work again.”

Sullivan gave an amused hum. His thumb had just found a racing throb in the crux where Sid’s leg met his torso. “All evidence suggests,” he breathed, lingering on the fricative ‘v’ sound, “that it will.”

“You’re gonna need better-” Sid broke off to gulp as Sullivan’s hand moved on, creeping towards his center, “-evidence than that.”

“I think this will prove sufficient,” he said, and finally took Sid into his palm. His fingers wrapped around their quarry and gently squeezed. God, he was hot, and so hard, impossibly hard, despite everything they’d done not so very long ago. It was at moments like this that Sullivan regretted the eight years of age that separated them. He was respectably erect himself, but there was a youthful vitality to Sid, to every twitch and arch and bitten-back moan, that Sullivan could never match in their second rounds. “...Don’t you?” he asked, pulling upward with each word.

“Oh, fucking _hell_ ,” Sid whined. The hand that had been teasing the soft flesh behind Sullivan’s ear was now tangled in his hair and trying to force his lips to make a real connection. “This’s...it’s...”

Sullivan resisted the pressure on the back of his head, but let his tongue lap briefly at the skin beneath him. “It’s what, Carter?” he pressed, purposefully puffing out more air than usual against the wet spot he’d made. Squeeze now, and again, firm, insistent, in control. “What is it?” 

“P’lice brutality.”

“How can that be the case? You aren’t even in handcuffs.” Sullivan shook off Sid’s grasping fingers and shifted so that he could whisper directly into his ear. “... _Yet_.”

Sullivan knew both in his heart of hearts and in the depths of his loins that the sound Sid made in response to that single word was the sexiest thing he had ever heard in his life. Or it would have been, if it hadn’t been overridden by the alarm they’d set as a failsafe in case they did accidentally nod off or end up in exactly this position. “Damn it!” Sullivan swore as a plaintive groan of frustration rose from beneath him. “Why?!”

“S’okay,” Sid mumbled. Once Sullivan had turned off the noise, he pulled him back down into a tight but unsuggestive embrace. “...It’s okay. Next time.”

“Yes, I know, but...fuck.” The last wasn’t a word he used more than about twice a year, but this moment warranted it. 

“Yeah.” Sullivan said nothing to that commiserating syllable, but just fumed silently as they both softened. “...Is that really what you wanted for your birthday, Tommy?”

“What, sex? Obviously.”

“No. To put me in handcuffs.”

“Oh. Well...yes.” Badly. Oh, so achingly badly.

He felt Sid’s quiet chuckle start in his chest before it escaped into the air. “I mean, I guess that’s nothing new. You just never translated it to sex before.”

“I know. I’m an idiot.” How had it never occurred to him before tonight that his ultimate fantasy wasn’t Sid in handcuffs – that image, in its normal context, had soured for him long ago – but rather Sid in handcuffs in his bed? Better yet, handcuffed to the bed, utterly pinioned and subject to Sullivan’s whims far more completely than he would ever have been under the law. 

Would Sid even want that, though? His day-to-day relationship with handcuffs was vastly different from Sullivan's. Cuffs were a policeman’s friend and a criminal’s (even a mostly reformed one’s) enemy. Something to be avoided, not something to give you a raging hard-on and make you plead for more. He hadn’t considered that potential flaw in his desire, and the alarm had kept him from hearing Sid’s actual reaction to the suggestion.

“I’d have let you, you know. I will let you. Next time.”

Sullivan lifted his head and met Sid’s gaze. “Even if it’s not my birthday?”

“We’d bloody well better be able to meet again before your next birthday!”

“You know what I meant.” He had to look away. “It isn't likely to bring up many pleasant memories for you.” 

“No,” Sid agreed. “It won’t do that.” He cupped Sullivan’s jaw in his hand and forced him to look down again. “... _Yet_ ,” he went on with a smirk. “So you’d better get it right the first time and make me want it again.”

“But no pressure,” Sullivan rolled his eyes. What, he thought nervously, if he had to put Sid in handcuffs during daylight hours before they could play this new game? Would he be able to control himself in that situation? It was easy, too easy, to imagine how it might go. It would be a warm day, maybe, and he’d have to get very near to him to close the bands. A whiff of his cologne, his natural scent just below that...the warmth of his body, the curve of the back of his neck as Sullivan stepped in behind him...an accidental brushing of authoritative knuckles against the swell of his arse, and knowing, just knowing, exactly what expression the contact had drawn on his face...

“Careful,” Sid warned. “If you start up again, I won’t be able to say no.”

And sure enough, Sullivan had gone and made himself half-hard just by thinking. He pulled away, grumbling. “I hate cold showers.”

“Just take a warm one and jerk off. You don’t have to go anywhere for hours.” Sid stretched luxuriously then, which was a vision that did not help Sullivan’s predicament any. Seeing his increased discomfort, Sid grinned. “Thought I’d give you something to work with.”

“As if you needed to.” 

“Well...” Sid rolled into a sit, leaned forward across the bed, and planted a sweet, almost chaste kiss on Sullivan’s unsuspecting lips. “...It _is_ your birthday.”

It was his birthday, indeed, and because of Sid he’d spent it sunk in lust and debauchery. Sullivan smiled. “You’re a terrible influence. Did you know that?”

“Sure I do.” Sid winked. “It’s why you keep me around. Make you loosen up once in a while.” Another kiss, and then; “the seventeenth should do, barring a dinner party or a murder.”

Two and a half weeks. It was a shorter gap than usual, but it was still torture. “That long?”

“Can’t help it. Lady F. wants to run up to London for a few days in between. That’ll kill the best time, moon-wise.” A third kiss, the final one, because Sid was up and moving towards the door. On the edge of the shadows, he paused. “...Hey, Tommy?”

“Hmm?” He pulled his gaze away from Sid’s rear – it almost looked like bruises were forming where he’d picked him up earlier, and Sullivan wasn’t sure whether he wanted to crow over the marks or apologize for them – and met his eyes. “What is it?”

Sid raised both of his fists to chest level, then tapped the outsides of his wrists together a few times, imitating a bound man. “Don’t go leaving anything you might need at work that day. Right?”

“Right.” That wasn’t going to be a problem; Sullivan fully intended to requisition a second pair of cuffs in the morning and keep them stored somewhere at home. Plenty of other officers kept a spare set or two, so there would be no questions asked. “Now get out of here. And if you start sniffling, Sid, you go straight to Mrs. McCarthy.”

“You say that like she wouldn’t be on me before I even knew I was sick.”

“Just do it.”

“I know, I know...” 

When Sullivan emerged from the shower – Sid had been right, warm water and his mental photo album were far superior to an icy deluge – the house was deserted. He moved through it with a faintly forlorn air, touching odd spots as he went along. The quilt they’d cuddled beneath, the door frame where Sid had leaned, the radiator downstairs that he’d most likely left his clothes drying next to, the kitchen door that he’d not only unlocked soundless but then somehow re-locked behind him when he left...

There was something else in the kitchen, something that Sullivan knew he himself hadn’t left there. Frowning, he approached the small, unmarked paper bag that had been placed beside his kettle. A single whiff of the contents told him what he was holding; an ounce, maybe even two, of Mrs. Everard’s missing tea. 

Mrs. Everard’s teas were always sold in tins, not brown paper bags. This much of one of her rare imports would have been pricy, probably costing close to a full day, and maybe more, of Sid’s wages. The burglar had been quick and silent and crafty, all skills that Sullivan had just had demonstrations of Sid’s ample proficiency in. He’d even said that there were a ‘couple of little things’ going on tonight. Why shouldn’t one of them be the illicit re-sale of most of a batch of high-quality tea?

“Oh, Sid, no...”

Sullivan shuddered with worry for the second time that night. He’d known that he might have to interview Sid about the robbery if nothing broke in the next couple of days, but he’d never entered his mind as a serious potential suspect. It hadn’t seemed to fit his history, for one thing. When Sid stole, it was either to make his own ends meet or because he felt there was someone who needed the stolen good more than the person who actually owned it. Five pounds of tea wasn’t going to save anyone’s life or give them a fresh start. 

Besides, Sid really had been a lot better about his misdemeanors of late. Sullivan privately credited their relationship as a factor in this change. Just the other day, in fact, he’d been wondering if their ‘something’s gone, you’re under arrest’ screen might be getting a little ragged. You could only arrest the same man for essentially the same activity without ever charging him so many times before people started to wonder what your real motive was. 

This, though...this was bad. The value of the missing tea plus the cash that had been taken with it elevated the crime to a higher level. A first-time offender might have gotten off with a sharp slap on the wrist, but someone with Sid’s form could expect to cool their heels in prison for several weeks at least. 

And Sullivan couldn’t let this case simply fade into oblivion the way he grudgingly had one or two other little vanishing acts in the past. Questions would be asked from above on this one, other eyes brought in. If Sid had done this, he was going to have to pinch him for it, and not in the good way. It would be the only way to protect not only Sullivan’s job, but also their romance. 

There was, he realized belatedly, a piece of paper folded in half beneath the tea. When he opened it, a smaller page fell out. Sullivan set that aside, and read the note he’d been left:

> Almost forgot to give you your actual birthday present. Got it while I was picking up an order for the House yesterday.  
>  Sorry it’s not in the tin, I needed that for something else.  
>  P.S. - You’re not supposed to tell what you spent on a present, but I figured you’d want the receipt anyway.

Sullivan almost dove for the slip of paper that had fallen out of the note. It was, in fact, a receipt from Mrs. Everard’s. It was dated yesterday, was made out for the right kind of tea, and had been written in a flowy, feminine script that he’d seen on the shop’s receipts many times before. “Now who’s giving heart attacks to whom, Carter?” Sullivan whispered as relief flooded him. The imp, he decided, was going to have to be punished for putting him through this little scare, especially if he didn’t have a good explanation of where the money – at least two days’ of a chauffeur’s pay, as it turned out from the total, maybe closer to three – for it had come from.

It was a good thing, then, Sullivan thought with a flat, wolfish grin as he turned on the kettle and let the burner flame catch the edge of Sid’s ambiguous but still-risky note, that they’d already agreed on the handcuffs.


End file.
